The American people don't pose a threat to our national security but big corporations do

We are told that a massive database with records of all of the phone calls that we make is necessary for national security reasons. We are asked to believe that this database is needed to combat terrorism, apparently just getting a warrant to tap a suspected terrorists phone is not enough for them. They need to have a database that will tell them whether or not you called your Grandmother last week, they can't fight terrorism without it. Of course they will tell you that they are only using this database to find terrorists and if you are not a terrorist they will not be looking at your private data, the massive database that holds records for damn near every last one of us is only going to be used to track down the terrorists. Trust them, they won't be spying on any union organizers or political leaders.

We are supposed to trust the NSA and just let them continue to operate in the shadows without telling us anything about what they are up to. We are told that everything they do needs to be classified, they are holding personal information on you for "national security" reasons so you don't need to know about it. No one seems to be able to explain what sort of vital national security information is held in Grandma's phone records, but we are supposed to just trust them that this is really important to keep us safe from terrorists.

Former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley has been a vocal critic of the sort of blanket spying on American citizens practiced by the NSA. As a former FBI agent who actually investigated suspected terrorists herself she says that these sorts of blanket sweeps of information are totally ineffective for fighting terrorism. When you collect such vast amounts of data you are bound to find some suspicious patterns, but just because a pattern is suspicious does not mean there is anything actually going on. If agents end up wasting their time tracking down a false lead that means they have less time to investigate the real criminals. If there is legitimate grounds for suspicion a targeted warrant would allow them to monitor any suspected terrorist without infringing on the rights of the rest of us.

The vast majority of the American people are not national security threats and we don't need the government collecting private data on them in order to keep us safe.

Our country is facing one very real national security threat however, we have corporations that have become so large that they have the ability to take down the entire American economy. This may sound outrageous and it is, but if you think it is hyperbole I ask you to consider the financial collapse of 2008. When a few large banks imploded they nearly brought down the entire American economy, millions of people lost their jobs because of a few banks. Just think about the national security implications of that, these banks have become so large that they literally have the power to take down our whole economy. It is not only banks that hold this sort of economic stranglehold on our society, the oil industry also has made our nation's security dependent on them as well.

Just a short drive of less than ten minutes from my home exists this lovely place which is owned by the Koch Brothers...

That Koch owned facility supplies more than half the gasoline used in my state of Minnesota, nearly all of the gas we purchase in the Twin Cities comes from there. Think about the national security implications of that, we have one private corporation with a very sketchy background supplying virtually all of the gasoline in our entire Twin Cities and suburban area. We have essentially handed the Koch brothers the power to shut down our state if they want to, we have allowed them to become so big that our entire society depends on them and I don't know about you but I sure as hell don't want to be dependent on the Koch Brothers.

Make no mistake about it, this is a real national security issue. No one should ever be allowed to acquire so much wealth that they have the ability to sabotage our national economy. This is the elephant in the room that they don't want us talking about, but the concentration of wealth is one of the biggest national security threats our nation faces.

Yet instead of targeting the real national security issue our government is keeping tabs on citizens who pose no threat at all.

This is not about Obama, this is about a corrupt system that needs to face the sunlight.